The telematics industry is advancing very rapidly because businesses are becoming more mobile and employing more mobile assets. Companies with a large number of mobile assets frequently track their mobile assets in order to efficiently manage them. One of the areas that is becoming increasingly important in mobile asset management is the exchange of information. The exchange of information allows business owners to obtain information regarding the mobile assets, such as mileage, location, diagnostics, fuel, etc. The exchange of information can be between the mobile assets and the asset managers, between mobile assets and other mobile assets, or between mobile assets and other entities that provide asset management or information services. Furthermore, the exchange of information may be between portable devices and asset managers to provide further services to the mobile asset owners or customers.
In a typical telematics system, the telematics hardware is a proprietary system that communicates information (e.g., vehicle location, diagnostic information, device specific information, etc.) in a proprietary format. The proprietary nature of existing telematics systems generally limits communications to communications between an asset, a user (customer), and the telematics provider; communication of information to third parties is not typical. In order for a third party to communicate with these proprietary telematics systems, the third party must typically implement costly and complex software to enable communications with existing proprietary software. Moreover, different types of software are needed for each type of proprietary system.
Thus, there is a need for a solution and method for more easily exchanging telematics information that is inclusive of vehicle information, global positioning system (GPS) information, and other information that is relevant to telematics solutions.